Cliché
by EmiliaPond
Summary: Ficlet. AU Skank!Quinn and Goth!Rachel. Rachel's life is a cliché. Sometimes, good things happen in clichéed stories. This is definitely one of them.
1. Chapter 1

Rachel was a walking cliché and she knew it. It's not like that is what she had aimed for at the start of her freshman year, but she found a strange comfort in the dark clothes and the overdone make up. She liked it. Yes, she was made fun of, but she could deal with it. She would have been made fun either way. What with her two dads and her not good enough looks and her grades. She had been used to it before, and if she could be comfortable now, then it didn't matter what anyone else thought.

She had friends, though. She wasn't as much of a loner as everyone believed. She had found a great friend in Tina, the only other gothic girl at school, and Mercedes, a sassy girl who loved to point out fashion flaws in everyone that walked by. And she had learned, over four years of sharing a lunch table with them, that they were quite possibly even bigger gossipers than the boys who ran the school paper.

And that's how she heard of the new girl.

"Quinn Fabray, I heard" Tina whispered, while putting photos of her and her boyfriend in her locker. For someone who pretended not to have feelings, her and Mike's love for each other was bordering on nauseating.

"Quinn?" Mercedes snorted from the other side of Tina's locker "Lauren told me her name was Lucy"

"Well, I heard that she has a tattoo of Ryan Seacrest!" Santana said walking by, in her cheerleaders uniform. Rachel did not envy Brittany and Santana, she definitely had enough to deal with, with Glee club and being part of other extra curricular clubs. She would probably be under too much pressure if she was on the Cheerios as well. But of course she would have loved to be wearing one of those uniforms, after all, everyone wanted to be part of the Cheerios. Nobody seemed to care that the Coach, Sue Sylvester, was a maniac.

"I want to give my cat a tattoo, but no tattoo shops will allow it. It's so racist" Brittany said, wide-eyed and deadly serious. Mercedes laughed and then turned the sound into a soft cough, when Santana started giving her a murderous glare.

"Well, I guess we'll see soon" Tina said loudly, turning her head towards the school doors.

Rachel looked over her shoulder and saw the hallway forming a path in the middle to let someone pass.

_Quinn Fabray._

She was slim and not too tall but not as short as Rachel either. She had soft pink hair with some blonde highlights. Her long grey skirt hovered just above the floor, long enough to hide her shoes but not so long that it touched the floor. Rachel had to make an effort to suppress the smile that was tugging at her lips. The girl was really pretty and Rachel had had her gay crisis a long time before not to be worried at the thought.

And then they locked eyes.

Because Rachel's life was a cliché and sometimes, not many times, but some of them, they were great clichés.

And this was one of them.

The girl smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Well, wow! If I have to be completely honest I was totally expecting for this story to have zero reviews, but thank you so much! You have no idea how much it means to me. This one is a bit longer? I hope you enjoy it :)**

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Quinn Fabray had the body of an underwear model and a smile that could take away anyone's breath. She barely tried at all and she could look like she had just come out of a fashion magazine. She would probably be able to pull off shaving her head and wearing paper bags as clothing items.

Not that she should, because that punkish style was definitely working for Rachel.

More than working, if she had to be honest. Quinn's and her's little interactions in the hallways (the smiles, the prolonged eye-contact, the not-so-subtle brushing up against her butt) had not diminished at all during the first week of school - but that was it. She had not gone out of her way to make conversation with Rachel or even talked to her at all. Rachel dwelled on the possibility that it might all have been in her head, and she dropped the tray containing her salad and apple next to Tina's.

"Did I make it all up in my head?" she said, dropping her back on the bench as she sat down, forcing Tina to move over to make space for her.

"Are you talking about the pink haired goddess?" Kurt Hummel sat down in front of her throwing his designer bag - how does he get enough money to buy those anyway? - next to him. "Because, let me tell you that the rumor is she is totally bisexual"

"Where's your boy toy?" Rachel never loved Mercedes more than when she took Kurt's attention away from her love life. She loved the boy, but he was a bit too intense. And there was nothing that distracted him more than the boy of his dreams.

"Blaine is sick, he caught some bug, the poor thing" Kurt's gaze became glossy, as it did every time he so far as thought of Blaine. Rachel could see the appeal, Blaine was a dreamboat, and his voice was certainly adorable. "I think I might have to visit him" Rachel saw Mercedes rolling her eyes and felt the side of her mouth twitching upwards. Kurt and Blaine were joined at the hip, there was not a single day they could spend without each other's company. It was almost as nauseating as Tina's relationship with Mike.

"Why don't you go call him?" Tina asked, while using her fork to move her food around in her plate, not really eating any of it.

"I already talked to him five minutes ago" Kurt assured them, and of course he had. The boy would not be able to spend two hours without communicating with his boyfriend. "So, Quinn Fabray"

Rachel groaned "I shouldn't have brought it up"

"Oh no, honey" Kurt's smile was bordering on a smirk and Rachel often wondered how a boy could go from awkward teen to hot guy in four years, it was completely unnatural. "You made no mistake, I have heard the best things of Quinn Fabray"

Rachel sighed "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Not a chance, sweetheart"

Tina smiled sympathetically from Rachel's side and grabbed her bag from under the table "While this is very interesting, I do have to finish an English paper, so, if you will excuse me, I have to meet up with Mike on the library"

She gave them all a wave before turning around and walking towards the exit of the cafeteria.

Mercedes snorted "Like hell she's going to work on a paper"

Rachel smiled, momentarily forgetting about the Quinn situation.

She could only forget for so long before Kurt crushed the fantasy, though. "So, Fabray. Gorgeous smile, really weird sense of fashion, let's not talk about the Ryan Seacrest tattoo, I think I might be scarred for life. However, there are some top rumours I'm sure you guys have not heard"

Mercedes looked at Kurt with new found interest in her eyes "Well, boy, do tell!"

"Please don't" Rachel whispered.

"She has a baby"

Would the cliché that was her love story never end?


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I am so so sorry, for this being as late as it is. I just started my IGCSEs on Monday, and they are going to finish on November 15th, but I do have some free days, so I'll try to keep this updated :) In other news, there will be a second set of notes in the bottom of the chapter to clear things up a bit, yes? I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Warning for swearing?**

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"Holy shit"

The only thing that brought Rachel back to reality was the sound of Mercedes' voice ringing in her ears. She was well aware of her jaw hanging open and she wondered for a second just how completely dumb she must have looked before closing it sharply at the sound of Kurt's giggle.

"Where did you even hear that from?" Mercedes half whispered, her voice breaking and higher than usual. And, well, Rachel could hardly blame her. She could hardly trust herself to talk, leave alone sound even close to normal.

"That's irrelevant" Kurt said, his smile dropping somewhat steadily.

"Hummel, I swear to God, if you are joking about this, I will tell everyone about the one time you and Blaine got it on in Finn's bedroom" Rachel's voice, as she had predicted, came out way higher and faster than would be considered normal.

"Lauren stole her file" Kurt said, lowering his eyes and taking a sip from his apple juice. "She told Puck and Puck told Finn, and you know Finn can't keep his mouth shut to save his life, right?"

"Yeah"

"Well, he totally spilled it over dinner yesterday night. Carole made him swear he wouldn't tell anyone, but I knew you'd want to know" Kurt shrugged, his smirk plastering over his face again. Rachel knew he had wanted to help, but really, she kind of wanted to punch him.

"Thanks" she whispered, unconvincingly.

"So, what's the rest of the story?" Mercedes whispered, the interested gleam in her eyes betraying any thoughts Rachel would have ever had of her keeping this to herself.

"Right, well, apparently, she got pregnant on her sophomore year and her parents kicked her out! Like, actually kicked her out!" Kurt was outraged, a small flush appearing on his cheeks. Rachel could hardly think of why parents would ever want to kick out their children, the people they were supposed to take care of. "Anyway, her parents got a divorce, and her mother took her back in or something. She put the kid up for adoption and, yeah that's it. She started the whole punk act after the pregnancy thing, like PTSD or something, I guess. It works for her, though."

"It totally does" Rachel muttered, earning choked back laughters from her friends

"She's gotten in a lot of trouble, there was a close call to juvie, according to her resumé"

"And that's why she moved here?" Rachel's voice had gone back to normal, but her face still held a frown of worry.

"I'd suppose" Kurt answered dismissively, starting to eat the horrendous food the cafeteria had given them.

Rachel leaned back on her seat, biting her nails thoughtfully. It was a habit she had developed over the last few years of school, and although she wanted to give it up, nothing she did seemed to work.

"I... uh" Rachel found herself grabbing her bag and throwing it over her shoulder as she stood up. "I'm going to the library"

"You haven't eaten anything" Mercedes pointed out, gesturing to her tray, the salad and the apple untouched.

"I'll eat the apple on my way there" she said, grabbing the apple "Help yourselves with the salad"

She left the tray on the table and walked out of the cafeteria, taking a bite of the apple before dumping it in the nearest trash can. She wasn't all that hungry.

The hallways were mostly empty of students, most of them being in the cafeteria or yet in class, so the library would be nearly empty. Before opening the doors, however, she remembered that both Tina and Mike would be there. With a groan, she turned back on her heels and headed towards the girl's bathroom. She wasn't going to be able to stay there through the rest of lunch, but at least she would be alone for a little while.

She pushed the door and stood in front of the mirror, getting her eyeliner out of her bag and correcting what she had not had the time to do in the morning. Just when she was putting the eyeliner back in her bag, the door opened, and she looked at the mirror to see the reflection of a girl with pink hair. Her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly straightened herself before turning to face Quinn.

"Hey" she said quietly, hoping for her to both hear her and ignore her. Her heart was thumping unsteadily and she was actually worried she might have a stroke.

"Oh." Quinn's lips formed a small smile that had Rachel's mind spiraling and forced her to smile back, nervously at her. "Hey"

"I'm Rachel" Rachel's palms were sweaty and she could hear her own heartbeat, which was completely unhealthy, she was sure of it.

"Quinn" the girl smiled and reached towards her bag, grabbing a book and opening it in the last page. She teared a piece and wrote something on it before handing it to Rachel.

"Uh" Rachel held the note, not entirely sure if she was supposed to read it or not. Quinn just grinned further, her smile almost turning into a smirk as she rolled her eyes and headed to one of the stalls "See you around, Rachel" she said, before opening the door and disappearing inside.

Rachel bolted outside the bathroom before reading the paper. The handwriting was cursive and perfect. "Call me maybe?" it said, written above nine numbers and a small smiley face.

She was not entirely sure how she managed not to scream.

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**Author's Note: Well, first off, I thought I'd tell you again how much all your favourites and reviews and follows mean to me! Like, i feel my chest tightening and I'm not even joking right now, oh my god.**

**Now, onto the serious business: This is obviously an AU, but I just thought I'd clear up that Puck and Quinn never happened. Quinn, however, did get pregnant and led a life similar to the one she would have at McKinley. Rachel is a lot more quiet in this AU, mainly because she doesn't have the confidence she has in the show.**

**I guess that's it! I think I'll have an update ready for Thursday (25th)!**


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